Koenji, the world and elsewhere

Owning Time

The deathbed regrets of the rich or famous or otherwise successful are by no means mysterious, revelatory or exclusive. Even my friends with kids in their late teens or twenties lament the same regrets. More time with family, with children, with loved ones, with oneself. Less focus on money, more attention to living.

It’s been a rainy week in Tokyo, but I rode to physio anyway. There was only a 50% chance of rain for one hour this afternoon. Riding home from physio i got stuck in the middle of it. A torrential downpour struck out of nowhere, albeit not unexpectedly.

Rather than race home, I pulled my bike over under the covered front steps of an office building and sat down to wait it out. Salarymen ran by on the sidewalk, in and out of the building, rushing to some meeting, or at least pretending to. Running through the rain on someone else’s clock.

Time is the single greatest thing in life. Untouchable and ephemeral, almost ungraspable, time is the only thing man cannot capture or alter or pervert. Finite and infinite at the same time, it can only be allotted or wasted. It can be stolen but never truly claimed.

Life’s greatest imperative is to disallow others to rob oneself of one’s most valuable asset. Time.